Building around a TE

[Ben E Lou]

IHOF's DogBytes Offensive Rookie O' The Year. (Dunno if Solecismic is gonna give him props. Never seen a TE get that one...)

http://108.59.255.76/~benelou/ihof/ben/playercard.php?playerid=26761

YEAR	TEAM	G	GS	TGT	CTCH	YD	TD	YPT	YPC	DRP	YAC	YAC/CTC	1DN	3DN%	20+	20+%	100+	PSPLY	TGT%	SCORE	RNK	POSRNK	VORP
2033		16	16	109	84	1328	17	12.2	15.8	3	565	6.73	63	72.7273	22	26.1905	8	472	23.1%	1,322.2	1	1	124.9

(His ratings are actually up to 90/90 now, at the end of his first regular season, by my scout. I just haven't had time to update the database.)

[Chubby]

uhhh why don't you post the stats for the rest of your offense

He certainly had a crazy season but he wouldn't have put up those numbers without the talent around him IMO

[Ben E Lou]

Because the stats for my offense have nothing to do with the point of this thread. My point in posting is that this TE led or tied for the team lead in every key receiving category, and was in the top 10 in the league (top 5 in many categories) in nearly every receiving category. He's is a classic example of what I said earlier:

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Bumping this as the career of Tyrell Hutchins is nearing the end. After 9 seasons, Hutchins has a career 9.56 ypt. That's #4 in league history, #1 (by far) in my team's history. However, it's worth noting that 17 FOFL tight ends with 1,000 or more pass plays have 8.0 ypt or better. Any receiver, be it a TE or WR, who passes that number is worth the targets. So I firmly believe that there are quite a few tight ends that you want to work into the offense as a main target.

But in analyzing the numbers on Hutchins and a couple other tight ends of mine, I think I've hit on why I tend to have tight ends with bigger numbers than nearly everyone else. I'm sure some think it's because of some super-secret beat-the-system game plan. And I'm sure that there's a small component to that. But the more I look, the more I see that the bigger component is simply formations. My good tight ends get wayyyyyyyyyyyy more pass plays than other people's because when I have a worthy one, I keep him on the field a *lot*.

For example, Hutchins has the best ypt among TEs in the FOFL. However, he is only #49 among TEs in target percentage. In other words, he's not (as I thought earlier) getting an inordinate amount of targets for when he's on the field. However, his participation simply blows every TE in league history away. He has averaged 927 plays per season. The next-highest TE is at 815. (And that guy is RKG's TE. As he mentioned above, he's another guy who gets big number from tight ends.) No other TE in league history averaged over 800 plays per season. My young stud IHOF TE has had 1017 and 951 plays in his two seasons. My primary WOOF TE doesn't have top-tier endurance, but even he is up around 875 plays per full season. All three of these guys are top receiving TEs, but none of them have particularly high target percentages. Sure, they get more targets than Joe Average Tight End, but they're nowhere near tops in the league among TEs, either.

So, I believe the bottom line is this:

The most important factor in getting your tight end involved in the passing game is heavily reducing or simply eliminating formations that do not involve the tight end.

Pass distance is important, too, but having him on the field is the #1 factor.

The key question to me when determining how much to reduce the usage of non-TE formations is this: who better receiver-TE1 or backup WRs???

I'd rather have my stud TE out there getting 8 to 9 yards per target than some 42/42 WR4 who is lucky to get 7.0, so I simply do not use the 4-WR and 5-WR formations when I have a big-time TE. And if my WR3 is that 42/42 type, I get rid of strong-3wr and weak-3wr too.

As best as I can tell, Tucker ran ~933 plays from scrimmage this season (may have been a few less than that if we faked a FG or punt at some point...) Glenn, with his 100 endurance and my using formations involving TEs nearly 100% of the time, was on the field for 888 of those plays--over 95%. We only used the TE-Focus game plan in one game this year. The other 15 games, we were doing our typical Run-N-Stun style offense with lots of passes outside the "sweet spots" for TEs, yet he still got Gronkowski-level numbers. I'm suggesting that a huge reason for that is simply that he was out there for nearly every play, which doesn't happen using default formation settings.

[Chubby]

The point of the thread was building an offense around a TE as a guy's WR aged and retired, it's entirely different from plugging a stud TE into a loaded offense. The offense doesn't revolve around Glenn like Hammer wanted his to revolve around Zachery.

I still maintain that as awesome as his season was (it was), he's a product of the offense. Simply throwing him out there with a mediocre QB and no WRs is not going to net you Glenn's stats. Your QB throwing for 5000+ yards and almost 60 tds DOES influence howone looks at Glenn's stats IMO

[aston217]

I think the point Ben is trying to illustrate is that you can build around a stud TE - and the key to getting that kind of production, is to avoid the formations where the TE is off the field (3WR except singleback, 4WR, 5WR).

If you pull out all the stops and make him the focus of your offense, you can get real production out of a guy.

Maybe not like that, but I think the focus is more on the relative production of his TE to the WRs on that team.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by aston217

I think the point is more about how a stud TE can be a real impact player on an offense, one you can build around, versus selling out to try to get the best WRs you can.

That's my point, he did sellout and draft WRs top 10. The offense isn't built around Glenn, it's a SP offense in MP with a great GP.

[GridGlory]

Originally Posted by Yoda

FOF2k7 Play's chart (images heavy) - Front Office Football Central

That should help you find what you are looking for.

Wish I could still see this Yoda. I'm a little late to the game

[Yoda]

I wish I had those images saved....

But, in running a 2-TE offense, you'll want to run some formations in addition to the 2TE ones or if you run just the 2-TE sets, make sure you are balanced. It seems to me that familiars are more based off type of plays out of a formation rather than just the usage of the formation itself.

I've run offenses with just 4 formations with limited familiars showing up.

[aston217]

Originally Posted by Yoda

It seems to me that familiars are more based off type of plays out of a formation rather than just the usage of the formation itself.

I think this is true. Recently I've had to run with a very limited set of formations, and was hit by a lot of familiars. When I went to check, the formations were different but they were all outside left runs.

I don't think the play sheet is relevant in the MP play engine, but I suppose the way to achieve balance would be to spread around the passing distances. Might not be that ideal, as Yoda told me a while ago that you really want the screen-18 range for TEs.

[Disturbed]

When I used to play FOF I would always try to build offense that incorporated heavy use of the TE, especially on 3rd downs as I found that I would generally complete 70% of my passes to the TE.